Alice, Sweet Alice

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

If you survive this night... nothing will scare you again.

Alice is a withdrawn 12-year-old who lives with her mother and her younger sister, Karen, who gets most of the attention from her mother, leaving Alice out of the spotlight. When Karen is found brutally murdered in a church, suspicions start to turn toward Alice. But could a 12-year-old girl really be capable of such savagery?

Date of release
1976-11-13
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (331)
Runtime
1h 48m
Genres
Horror, Mystery, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director
Alfred Sole

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: CA$340K
  • Filmed in: New Jersey

Alice, Sweet Alice, originally titled Communion, is a 1976 American psychological slasher film directed by Alfred Sole, written by Sole and Rosemary Ritvo, and starring Linda Miller, Paula Sheppard, and Brooke Shields in her film debut. Set in 1961 Paterson, New Jersey, the film focuses on a troubled adolescent girl (Sheppard) who becomes a suspect in the brutal murder of her younger sister (Shields) at the latter's First Communion, as well as in a series of unsolved stabbings that follow. Mildred Clinton, Niles McMaster, and Jane Lowry co-star, with Louisa Horton and Lillian Roth appearing in minor roles.

Production

Director Alfred Sole began writing the film in 1974, collaborating with co-writer Rosemary Ritvo on the script. Ritvo, an English doctoral student at Fordham University, was Sole's neighbor, and the two often talked about films together. "She was a Catholic and we would talk about the Catholic church, religion and stuff like that.

Sole was inspired to make the film after seeing Nicolas Roeg's 1973 psychological thriller, Don't Look Now, based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier. As a result, Alice, Sweet Alice makes several visual references to Don't Look Now, namely the usage of the raincoat that is featured on the villains in both films.

Sole was also influenced by the works of Alfred Hitchcock, as well as the 1955 French film Les Diaboliques, while assembling compositions in the film. Although many critics have drawn comparisons to Italian giallo films and the works of Dario Argento in particular, Sole claimed to have not seen Argento's work at the time.

The film was co-produced by Sole and Richard K. Rosenberg, an attorney from Glen Rock, New Jersey who had previously represented Sole.

Sole, at the time an inexperienced filmmaker, did not have a casting director to cast the film, and instead would approach various stage actors about playing the parts. "I didn't have a working knowledge of what an actor does," Sole recalled, "so I started going to a lot of theater." Sole would approach actors after shows with his screenplay in hopes of casting them.

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